Sunday, December 5, 2010

"Trade Center Sweetens Deal to Keep Brokerage Firm,"

After flirting with New Jersey, Cantor Fitzgerald, a major institutional-bond brokerage firm and provider of financial information services, has decided to remain at 1 World Trade Center and expand its space. The company has leased an additional 75,000 square feet, bringing its total in the building to 175,000 square feet. The deal involves New York City tax incentives, including sales tax relief, valued at about $2 million.

The company has renewed its lease for the 104th and 105th floors---the top office floors in the 110-story, 4.7 million-square-foot tower---and has added the 103d and part of the 101st floors. The 15-year lease in the building, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has an aggregate value of about $75 million.

Cantor Fitzgerald has 2,200 employees, about 1,000 of them at the Trade Center.

Scott Pudalov of the Insignia/Edward S. Gordon Company, who represented Cantor Fitzgerald with David Levinson, Michael Geoghegan and Janet Pierce, said Cantor Fitzgerald had considered moving to Jersey City, possibly to the Harborside Financial Center, a nearly 2 million-square-foot complex next to the Exchange Place PATH station. But Mr. Pudalov said the Port Authority had agreed to provide Cantor Fitzgerald with increased electrical and air-conditioning capacity and emergency backup power.

Cherrie Nanninga, the Port Authority's director of real estate, said many tenants at the Trade Center have requested such provisions.